The University as Sanctuary

Strikes against universities are as common in Mexico today as they were in the United States during the Sixties, and often they are even more violent, with beatings, kidnappings, gun fights, and an occasional murder added to the usual “trashing” and property destruction. The strikes are moves in a declared campaign by admirers of Che, Mao, Ho, and Allende to destabilize the government and open the way for a Marxist regime, just as their idol, Fidel Castro, did in Cuba.

Scores of university strikes have erupted in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America in recent years. Almost all have been called by left-wing extremists, and all have involved a perversion of the principle of university autonomy. (Nor can Mexicans easily dismiss fears concerning Communist intentions as “paranoid.” In 1968 a Communist golpe de estado was launched from the National University. In 1971, five top Soviet diplomats were expelled for having recruited fifty Mexican youths for terrorist training in North Korea.)

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Carlos Untel

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Strikes against universities are as common in Mexico today as they were in the United States during the Sixties, and often they are even more violent, with beatings, kidnappings, gun fights, and an occasional murder added to the usual “trashing” and property destruction. The strikes are moves in a declared campaign by admirers of Che, Mao, Ho, and Allende to destabilize the government and open the way for a Marxist regime, just as their idol, Fidel Castro, did in Cuba.

Scores of university strikes have erupted in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America in recent years. Almost all have been called by left-wing extremists, and all have involved a perversion of the principle of university autonomy. (Nor can Mexicans easily dismiss fears concerning Communist intentions as “paranoid.” In 1968 a Communist golpe de estado was launched from the National University. In 1971, five top Soviet diplomats were expelled for having recruited fifty Mexican youths for terrorist training in North Korea.)